


White Picket Fences

by ignipes



Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-02
Updated: 2007-05-02
Packaged: 2017-10-07 21:03:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/69212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignipes/pseuds/ignipes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Dean grow up and live in neighboring houses with white picket fences, beautiful wives, 9-5 jobs, 2.2 kids, and a golden retriever apiece. They have the most ordinary lives imaginable -- except for Sam's nightmares. AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	White Picket Fences

The screen door slapped shut behind him, and Dean's heavy footsteps crossed the porch.

"Here."

Sam looked up at the tap of something cold on his shoulder and accepted the beer. He twisted off the cap and leaned back, resting his elbows on the top porch step and taking a long drink.

Dean sat down beside him and gestured with his own beer. "Not bad for a day's work."

Tilting his head to one side, Sam regarded the tree house thoughtfully. It wasn't fanciest piece of construction in the world, just two platforms in the branches of an old cottonwood, a crooked ladder of two-by-four steps leading up to it and a tire knotted to a thick rope hanging down.

"It still needs to be stained," Sam said.

"Sure," Dean agreed easily. "Tomorrow. Jimmy has an early soccer game, but we'll be done about noon."

"We can use the--" Sam stopped mid-sentence to yawn loudly, then continued, "--the leftover gallon or two from the deck." He took another drink of his beer and noticed that Dean was look at him in amusement. "What?"

"Is it naptime, Sam? You've been yawning all afternoon. I can get you a blankie if you--"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Bite me. No, I just didn't sleep much last night."

Dean's grin grew wider. "Yeah?"

"Not like _that_."

"Hey, man, I ain't judging you," Dean protested. "Jess is hot when she's pregnant. I'm just saying maybe you should let her get some sleep every now and then."

Shaking his head, Sam said, "Really. I just couldn't sleep."

He tried to keep his voice casual, but Dean must've heard something in the words, because he sat upright and his expression turned curious. "Nightmares again?"

"It's no big deal." Sam hoped Dean would let it drop.

But Dean asked, "Was it the same as--"

His question was interrupted by the sounds of the gate separating their backyards slamming open and a horde of children and dogs spilling through, a whirlwind of laughter, grass-stained knees and untied shoelaces.

One small, dark-haired boy stumbled to a stop in front of Dean. "Dad? Can I sleep over with Alex tonight? We're going to put a tent in the backyard."

Sam blinked. "You are?"

Michael looked at him steadily. "Aunt Jessica said you would help us set it up and make sure we didn't get scared, but we're not _babies_, so you don't have to do that. You're just going to help us set it up and get the sleeping bags out of the attic."

"I am?" Sam raised his eyebrow and glanced at Dean. "That's nice of me."

Alex piped up, "Mom said to tell you it was your punishment for not fixing the toilet like you said you would."

Michael turned back to Dean. "Can I, Dad? Please?"

"If it's okay with your mother," Dean replied.

Michael scowled, wrinkling his nose and jutting his lower lip out in a patented Winchester pout. "She'll make me clean my room first. Why can't you just say yes?"

Laughing, Dean reached out and ruffled his son's hair while Michael tried to squirm away in embarrassment. "Because Mom scares me more than she scares you. Go on in and ask her."

"Fine." Michael turned on his heels and huffed away, Alex and both tail-wagging pups following him like an entourage.

When they disappeared around the corner of the house, Dean said, "Was it the same as before?"

Sam didn't have to ask what he meant. "No. It was different -- look, Dean, it's no big deal."

"Sam, how long has this been going on?" Nearly a year, and they both knew that, but Dean continued before Sam can answer, "So what was it this time? About that old woman again?"

Sam hesitated before answering. He remembered well enough. Too well, in fact, and that was what made the nightmares so unsettling. They didn't fade from his mind as soon as he woke; they lingered, vivid and detailed and violent, so intense he could still recall every moment, every terrifying image, hours and even days later.

"She was there," he began. It was unsettling, the way he despised the old woman when he dreamed about her but missed her when she was gone. "We were in the hospital. I mean -- you were in the hospital, and I was visiting. I think I was, anyway. You were unconscious -- I guess you were hurt pretty bad, but I don't know why, and I was standing over your bed, and she... the old woman was just sitting in the corner, laughing."

That was what she did in all of his nightmares, just stood aside and laughed, watching without moving while people -- strangers, sometimes, but also Sam's family, Dean and Mom and Dad and Jessica, all of them in their own way -- bled and cried and burned and suffered. They were no more than flickering images, brief snapshots, but each image was etched in his mind indelibly, and the old woman was always watching, always laughing.

"I remember something about..." Sam paused, trying to make sense of it. "I don't know, a car crash or getting shot or... both? But the weirdest thing was what I was thinking. I wasn't... surprised or shocked or anything, I was just thinking, 'Dean's dying again.' And I was -- man, I was scared. Really, really scared that you would die, but also..."

So scared that when he'd woken up, shivering and sweating, his head was throbbing so badly he'd rushed into the bathroom to vomit. And so scared that he'd gone downstairs and made it halfway across the yard, stumbling into the white picket fence in the dark, before he realized that pounding on Dean's door in the middle of the night just to make sure he was alive probably wasn't the smartest thing to do.

"I don't know," Sam said again. "I think I was... kind of expecting it."

Dean raised his eyebrow. "Because I lead a life of such danger and excitement?"

In spite of himself, Sam smiled. "Well, you know what they say about math teachers."

"Doomed to forever toil and struggle protecting today's teenagers from the horrors of trigonometry and algebra," Dean said solemnly. "It's no wonder you have job stress nightmares for me."

"It's probably nothing," Sam said. Put like that, it did sound pretty ridiculous. "They're all nothing. Just bad dreams and migraines."

"Maybe you should see a doctor," Dean said.

"Um, I'm married to a doctor."

"You're married to a pediatrician," Dean pointed out. "I mean a -- you know, a head doctor. A neurologist. Those headaches can't be normal."

"Yeah. Maybe."

Sam leaned back again and lifted his beer bottle to his lips, squinting in the late afternoon sun and looking around the yard. The grass was autumn dry, a little crunchy underfoot, but Cassie's garden was lush and green, crowded with bean poles and tomato plants and vines creeping along the ground. There were dirt bikes leaning against the side of the house, a ripped soccer net beside them, and the gate in the white picket fence that separated their yards hung open, as usual. A gentle breeze stirred the fall leaves of the cottonwoods, and the tire swing twisted on its rope. Dean's power tools were still scattered on the grass at the foot of the tree, and an orange extension cord snaked across the lawn.

"Do you ever think--"

He stopped, swallowed another mouthful of beer.

Dean prodded. "What?"

Sam inhaled slowly. "Did I ever tell you that I know who that old woman is? The one I dream about, I mean." He knew the answer; he'd made a point of never telling Dean that, even when he finally broke down and told him about the nightmares in the first place.

"You do?"

"Yeah. Remember that year -- god, I think I must've been about eight, you were twelve, and Mom and Dad took us to the State Fair?"

Dean grinned at the memory. "You ate, like, five million funnel cakes and threw up on the Ferris wheel."

"Right. I mean, before that. Remember the funhouse?"

"Was that the time the clowns made you cry?"

Sam scowled. "No."

"Are you sure? 'Cause I think that happened more than once."

"Yes! Dean, listen to me. Remember how I got lost in the funhouse?"

"I guess. Sam, what's this about?"

"That old woman," Sam said impatiently. "That's where I met her. Inside the funhouse."

His memory, so many years later, was crystal clear. He could still smell the dust and grime of a tired old carnival, sticky-sweet cotton candy and too many people in the hot sun. He remembered the way his sneakers stuck to the floor while he walked, remembered how the mirrors and glass in the stupid little maze were smudged with handprints, how he could hear other people laughing and joking and shouting in the funhouse but couldn't see any of them. He remembered panicking because Dean wasn't behind him anymore, trying to trace his steps back and getting more and more scared when he couldn't find Dean, couldn't find _anyone_, until he was running through the narrow funhouse corridors and making turns at random, too embarrassed to call out but too anxious to stop moving.

And he'd run right into her. Plowed into her so hard he nearly knocked her over, and after the initial shock he felt horrible, because he knew you weren't supposed to run into little old ladies, even old ladies in funhouse mazes, but she had just looked at him and laughed. She was tiny, barely taller than Sam had been at eight years old. Her hair was a bird's nest of tangled gray around her wrinkled face, and when she laughed her breath smelled old and dank, like Grandma's storm cellar after a thunderstorm. One of her eyes was bright and blue; the other was murky white. She had reached out, her fingers thin as a skeleton's and her nails long like claws, and she grabbed his shoulders with a surprisingly strong grip.

"She asked me if I wanted my family to be happy," Sam said. He was looking straight ahead, staring at the tree house but not seeing it, and he heard the click as Dean set his beer bottle on the wooden step. "Just -- completely random, out of the blue."

_Do you want your family to be happy, boy?_

"Weird," Dean said evenly. "What did you say?"

He didn't question it, didn't doubt Sam's memory, didn't ask Sam if he was sure it was the same woman, and Sam was silently grateful. That was why he told Dean about this stuff, and these stupid dreams that meant nothing and idiotic memories that kept him up at night. Jessica worried and prodded and looked at Sam like he was a patient lying to her about where it hurt, but Dean just said, "Weird," and let Sam tell his story.

"Well, mostly I just stared at her," Sam admitted. He tried to smile but he found himself shivering in spite of the afternoon heat. He remembered his heart hammering in his chest, how it hurt to breathe, how he was suddenly terrified that he couldn't hear the laughter and shouts from the funhouse around him anymore. "But I think I managed to nod a little. I mean, what kind of stupid question is that? Of course the answer is yes."

"Of course."

"And then she said--"

Sam had turned it over in his mind a hundred times, ever since the nightmares had begun. Remembering the iron grip of her fingers through his t-shirt, her mismatched eyes and thin lips curved into a smile.

"She said she would let us be happy this time," Sam explained, turning the words over in his mind as he spoke them, "but next time she wouldn't let us choose."

_I'll let it happen this time, because it amuses me_. In his nightmares she always had an old woman's rasping, whispery voice, but in his memory she sounded strong and young. _Another time, another place, and you won't get to choose._

"Choose what?" Dean asked.

Sam shook his head. "I don't know."

"She was probably just some fake fortune-teller with the carnival," Dean said reasonably. "Hiding in the funhouse to scare the crap out of little kids."

"Probably."

Dean was right. It didn't explain why the old woman should show up in his dreams now, more than twenty years later, standing over images of tragedy and ruin like a god on a field of war, cackling with laughter as Sam panicked and gasped and clawed his way out of the nightmares. But he was probably right.

"Or maybe," Dean went on and even without looking, Sam could hear the smile in his voice, "maybe she was a magical sorceress who rode her silver unicorn down from a golden fairy castle in the sky to meddle in the affairs of mortals, and you were really damn lucky to say yes, because if you had said the wrong thing our lives would totally suck and it would all be your fault."

"Dude." Sam laughed, lifted his beer bottle and drained it. "That's worse than my nightmares. Unicorns are scary. What do they need those horns for, anyway?"

"Don't ask, Sammy. The kids are around. But as it turned out," Dean said, clapping him on the shoulder, "you didn't do so bad, picking our lives for us. Good work. Except--"

Sam looked at him, eyebrows raised in question. "Except what?"

"Really, man, you could have asked the witch lady to give me a cooler car."

"Dean, seriously. You're pathetic."

Sam suppressed a shudder, trying not to think about the sound of metal screeching against metal in his nightmares, the grotesque twist of a study frame and the scent of blood and oil, a broken body in a broken machine. Something classic, something cool, he had no idea what it had been, but Dean probably would. If he could see into Sam's dreams. If Sam had any desire to tell him that, yeah, the car was yet another way he dreamed about Dean dying.

Sam shook himself and went on, "I think there's a statute of limitations on complaining about driving a mini-van. Five years max."

"Only five?" Dean said, a little sadly.

Sam held up his hand, fingers splayed. "Only five. And you've had yours for six, which means it's high time you start taking it like a man and admit that you're a middle-aged suburbanite who's never going to touch anything cooler than a Dodge Caravan."

"Why are you always crushing my dreams, Sammy?"

"It's for your own good," Sam replied, in the same voice he used to tell his boys that well, no, it really wasn't a good idea to make a parachute out of Mommy's nicest tablecloth and try to climb onto the roof to test it.

"If you say so." Dean sighed melodramatically, but it turned into a laugh halfway through. He stood up, picked up his beer bottle and took Sam's, and said, "Since you're being so mean, I think it's time I go start dinner before my children cannibalize each other."

Sam stood up as well. "Again?"

"Michael just learned about the Donner Party in school, and he's already asked for a hunting knife for his birthday."

"You have the weirdest son."

"Oh, you're one to talk, father of the boy who talks to mushrooms."

"He's _imaginative_," Sam said defensively. "And besides, he's moved on from mushrooms to pumpkins."

Dean walked over to the screen door and pulled it open, stepped aside quickly as both dogs charged out in a blur of yellow fur and excitement. "I'll send the little camper over later, okay?"

"Only if you tell him all cousins and other family members are off limits for midnight snacks."

"I'll try, but you know how stubborn he can be." Dean looked around carefully and glanced over his shoulder. "I think he gets that from his mother."

From inside the house, Cassie's cry of protest rang loud and clear: "Watch your mouth, Winchester! I heard that."

Laughing, Sam stepped down from the porch with one long stride.

"Sam."

He turned around. The amusement was gone from Dean's voice, and his expression was serious.

"I meant what I said about seeing a doctor," Dean said. "Those headaches you're having -- it doesn't take a genius to know that's not normal. You need to get that checked out."

"I will."

"Call the doctor tomorrow."

"Dean, I will."

"Or I'll tell Jess to call him for you."

Sam made a face. "Unfair tactics."

"Deal with it." Dean stepped inside the house and let the door shut behind him. Through the screen, he sketched a casual wave and said, "Later, man."

Sam crossed the yard toward his own house. The sun was going down, and there was a hint of autumn chill in the air, a welcome relief after a long, hot summer. The windows of his house were bright, a familiar mirror image of Dean's, so tranquil and ordinary and calm. He hadn't even thought about it, years ago when Jess was offered the job at the hospital and Sam took the position at the university. Their apartment was too small and sterile for the smile that Jess wore the day she came home, kissed him in the kitchen, and said, _We're having a baby._ A week later they'd been house-hunting for all of five minutes when Sam had pointed out that Dean's neighbor was moving, and Jess had just rolled her eyes, laughed, and asked if he was absolutely _sure_ he and Dean weren't secretly conjoined twins.

But it felt right. Boring tract homes, boring square yards, a single white picket fence down the middle, one lawn mower between them and two dogs who nobody was really sure belonged to which family anymore. Sam left the gate in the fence open when he stepped through, and he looked up to see Jess standing at the sink in the kitchen. Her hair was pulled up in a messy bun, strands falling down to frame her face and the light behind her glowing like fire in their cozy yellow kitchen.

She glanced up and saw him through the window, and she said something -- her lips moving, her eyes bright, words he couldn't hear and didn't understand. Sam felt a twist of fear in his gut, a cold knot at the smell of smoke and echoing sound of sirens, and he ignored the images that flickered into his mind.

They were only nightmares. They didn't mean anything.

Taking the porch steps in a single stride, Sam pulled open the back door and went to help his wife make dinner.


End file.
